Adventures of an Underwater Photographer

Details: The last dive at Catalina. This dive was suppose to be at an area with a stand of kelp forest, but the current was deemed too strong so we moved into a small bay. A nice shallow site with lots of fish around. An octopus and a Moray Eel put in an appearance.

Details: This was the second dive at the same site. To mix it up i went down to about 20m, and the fish diversity was a bit better, including a lone Yellow-tailed Kingfish cruising past. I spotted a couple of crayfish hiding away in crevices (it was week one of crayfish season so they were probably pretty edgey). These californian specie look a lot more freaked out than the ones we have in Victoria waters…big staring eyes watching your every move. I also spotted an octopus in the shallows trying to blend into the rocks.

Details: No trip to California is complete without a trip to the Channel islands..at least for a diver anyway. With limited time, i arranged to jump aboard a charter leaving from Long Beach out to Catalina Island. The skipper was nice enough to pick me up from my hotel and we headed down to the harbor. On arrival, the rest of the crew were scurrying around frantically, and we quickly got word that the compressor had given up while they were half way through filling the tanks for the 20+ divers on todays trip. The word ‘cancelled’ was thrown around for a good 30 minutes, but eventually the decision was a made to run at half numbers and just take out the Open Water students, plus one lucky Aussie that was flying out the next day! So out we went to Catalina, and despite the wind being up, we were greeted to crystal clear water. The diving didn’t live up to the hype though. Although great conditions, there were no kelp forests and, being mostly open water students, we stayed at a less than advanced site for the three dives. The Garibaldi(California’s marine emblem) are the stars of the show, flashing around their bright orange colouration against a bright blue background. I didn’t see a lot of other critters…perhaps the Garibaldi distracted me, but i dont think this site had a lot to offer in terms of diversity.

Details: For the second dive, Brenna took me to San Carlos Beach to dive the Metridium Fields – a very unique giant anemone that grows in large clusters on boulders etc. The visiblity was atrocious and we nearly got separated on decent. Luckily we made it to the Metridium Fields and it was an eerie experience swimming with these strange forms in the unearthly green glow. Not a stunning dive site, but a very unique one!

Details: Day two in Monterey saw me meet up with Brenna to dive some of shore dives along the Carmel coastline. The first site was Butterfly House, a site that i’d read about which sounded fantastic. The entry point was over a fence and down a small cliff next the “butterfly-shaped” house. We then swam out through a gap in the rocky point and over to the south side of the point. This is were we decended, mainly to make it easier to negotiate the kelp on the surface..better to swim thorugh it, than over the top. We entered a lush kelp forest, and although vis was poor, the place had great atmosphere. Not as many fish as Pt lobos, but some different critters around, and more terrific terrain.

Details: This was the second dive at Middle Reef at Point Lobos. One of the amazing things about this area is how quickly the visibility changes. After about an hours surface interval, the vis had dropped dramatically. No biggy…just adds atmosphere to the eerie nature of the kelp forests.

Details: I was lucky enough to be sent to San Francisco for a work conference and had two weeks free afterwards to travel around the United States. After a lot of research i decided that diving around Monterey sounds like it would be a good spot to get a few dives in, and also be close enough to see some of the other land-based sites around California. Point Lobos sounded like a fantastic spot to start and i met up with a diver called Gary to check out the Kelp Forests on this amazing marine reserve. Despite all the literature about the underwater canyons right off shore Monterey and Carmel, we only reached about 12m on this dive. But it was fantastic with some nice kelp forests, lots of fish and some great terrain.